


Growth

by Engineer104



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Mutual Pining, Pining, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, i do not know what i'm doing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-19
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-03-06 18:31:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13417119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Engineer104/pseuds/Engineer104
Summary: Lance finds his soulmate; Pidge does not.





	Growth

**Author's Note:**

> in other words, the soulmate AU where they're not actually soulmates. i said i would never write a soulmate AU, yet here i am, posting a soulmate AU. why, exactly, did i change my mind, you ask?? because i had this Idea and also i haven't written any of that Angst in a while
> 
> anyway, in addition to fairly significant one-sided allurance, there is also mentioned shallura, hunay, matt/te-osh ~~gimme the tragic ships~~ , and **spoiler alert** katt
> 
> as for continuity...there is none!! where's Lotor?? no one knows!! is Shiro a clone?? perhaps, perhaps not
> 
> regardless, enjoy!!

Pidge couldn’t say what possessed her to cultivate the plant, only that the single stalk poking out of the barren ground screamed _loneliness_ and _desperation_. Curling swirls of smoke still lingered in the air, but it wasn’t enough to conceal the desolation surrounding her, of a planet drained of quintessence, a landscape devoid of life.

Except for the curious green vine that stuck about half a meter up, the tip barely high enough to brush Pidge’s knees if stretched out.

She knelt in front of it, reaching towards it with a gloved hand and twining a thin tendril around a finger. The gloves’ odd manufacture allowed her to feel the vine’s smooth surface, and despite her ignorance where all things _green_ and _alive_ and _alien_ were concerned, it seemed healthy.

But it wouldn’t stay that way for long, Pidge guessed from her life support’s atmospheric readings. Not that there was much atmosphere to speak of, as the pressure was far too low to sustain any life at all.

Pidge bit her lip, and after confirming with the Green Lion that they had enough time before they needed to return to the Castle, she buried her fingertips into the ashy soil around the vine’s roots and dug.

* * *

Pidge enlisted Coran’s help in locating what she thought she needed to nurture the vine. He found her something deep and ceramic that she could use as a pot, along with nutrient-rich dirt from Kaltenecker’s enclosure. Kaltenecker herself would provide certain _other_ nutrients that Pidge hoped would help the plant grow.

Inside the Green Lion’s hangar she set up a UV lamp and rested the vine, now potted, in its glow. She spun the dial, messing with the settings and unsure what strength it needed; searching the Castle’s databases for information about the now-dead planet’s climate proved fruitless, because even ten thousand years ago it had not yet evolved life.

But she did save the data she took with Green when she visited, and from that she could extrapolate how much sunlight the vine used to receive in a single planetary rotation based on that. She set the time on the UV lamp, even though she knew she would check on the vine as often as she possibly could.

Pidge was so focused on making sure the timer’s dial was set _precisely_ at the correct number of vargas that she didn’t hear Lance’s footsteps approaching. In fact, she didn’t notice his presence until he stood right beside her, close enough that his warm breath on her face made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

“Pidge.”

Pidge dropped the dial and jumped, only distantly hearing it clatter to the floor as she spun around to face Lance. She collected herself quickly, annoyed that he still had this _inexplicable_ ability to startle her when no one else ever managed it. She scrambled for the dial and, absurdly, hid it behind her back and positioned herself between Lance and the vine where it sat underneath the UV lamp.

“Lance,” Pidge said. She forced a smile; would she have been able to sense him coming – somewhere in the back of her mind, a sixth, unexplainable sense that everyone but _her_ seemed to have – if he was her soulmate?

For some reason he had the legs of his jeans rolled up halfway to his knees, and her eyes fell, drawn, to the soulmark that unfairly teased her, the pink lion’s head that faced her dead-on just above his right ankle. She tore her gaze away and forced it up to his face.

Lance raised an eyebrow at her. “Why are you hiding that plant?”

Pidge cleared her throat. “I’m not sure,” she admitted, relaxing her shoulders and stepping aside so he could approach it. She put the lamp’s dial on the floor beside its base, an odd surge of protectiveness within her as Lance touched the vine, eyes narrowed and curious.

Pidge crossed her arms to prevent herself from getting between them again, instead hovering like an anxious parent handing off her child to someone else to supervise for the first time.

“And you found it on a dead planet?” Lance asked incredulously. At Pidge’s affirmation, he said, “Huh.”

Pidge sighed, tapping her fingers against her arms and eager to get back to figuring out how much water her new charge needed. “Did you want anything, Lance?” she wondered.

Lance glanced at her and smirked, a crinkle in his forehead. “Are you that eager to get rid of me?”

Pidge frowned at him; by now she knew him well enough that she could tell the real smiles from the fake. So she rolled her eyes and said, “I guess not. I’m just _eager_ to get back to the vine.” She joined him beside it and pointed out a bud of new growth at the base of the plant, a promise of a new tendril. “I wonder how long and fast it’ll grow.”

“You sound pretty confident you can keep it alive,” Lance observed with a smile, “especially considering how much you don’t like _nature_.”

She snorted. “Well, the bond goes both ways…” She nodded towards where the Green Lion crouched, dormant while they had no battle to fight in their immediate future, but she could feel her, slumbering in the back of her head, an odd tension in her limbs as if Pidge too prepared to spring on some unsuspecting prey.

According to Hunk, when she’d worked up the courage to ask, the bond between Lion and Paladin was remarkably similar to what existed between requited soulmates, and the one time she’d explained it to Matt – who had one but not the other – he’d been able to confirm he experienced something similar – or used to.

“Right,” Lance said. His lips pressed together, and Pidge remembered too late his bond with two Lions rather than just one, and his unrequited soulmate.

“Are you…okay?” she asked him.

“Perfect.” He unrolled his jeans, covering his ankles. “Anyway, I just wanted to check out your find. Coran told me about it…” He rubbed the back of his neck, uncomfortable. “Though if you wanted to be alone with your baby vine, I can leave—”

“No, no!” Pidge interrupted quickly, waving her hands. “I didn’t mean to imply that at all.” She laughed, and even to her it sounded a little nervous. “You just came here and didn’t explain why.”

“Why do I have to have a reason for seeing you?” Lance said, frowning and raising an eyebrow at her.

Pidge focused her gaze back on the vine. “You don’t.” She forced her hands to unclench since she’d curled them into fists without noticing, all too conscious of the tension between her and Lance, a tension that hadn’t existed until very recently, a tension she couldn’t explain.

She wished she understood _why_ , and what changed.

“Do you need help with it?” Lance pointed towards the plant and grinned. “I’ve got a _bit_ of a green thumb.” He held a thumb up to her.

Pidge raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You?”

“Sure!” Lance said. He leaned over the plant, and he would’ve thrown his shadow over it if Pidge hadn’t grabbed his arm and tugged him back. “My mother kept a garden, and I used to help her with it sometimes.” He frowned and examined his fingernails. “Didn’t much like the dirt though.”

Pidge snorted and said, “So why do you think you can help with it then?”

“Because something tells me you don’t _really_ know what you’re doing.” Lance nudged her side with his elbow, and she dropped his arm at the reminder that she still held it.

“It has light,” Pidge pointed out, “and I may not know what it needs to thrive, but I’ll figure it out.” She leaned towards it so that it was at eye level. “Maybe it flowers, or bears fruit, or I can try transplanting stalks – though it’s a vine so maybe that’s not the right word? – and if it seeds then I can plant _those_ , and maybe we can finally get fresh food on the Castle, and—”

“Okay, how about you slow down and write all that down so I can look it over later?” Lance grabbed her shoulders, steering her away from the vine and its light source and towards her desk.

“You really want to help me?” A familiar warmth filled Pidge’s chest, and she couldn’t help the smile on her face as she settled into her chair, though it faltered slightly when Lance sat on her desk, swinging his legs.

“Sure!” Lance said cheerfully. He messed with the electronic bits and wires scattered across her desk. “It can be our thing.”

“Our…thing?” Pidge asked. Despite a hint of skepticism that she couldn’t shake, a thrill of excitement at this possibility had her reaching for a notepad and pen so she could jot down some of her ideas. “What about the video game console that you still haven’t given back?”

Lance waved a dismissive hand as he peered at the notes she scribbled on the pad. “Maybe this can be our _second_ thing?”

“Isn’t Kaltenecker the second?” Pidge asked, smirking.

Lance rolled his eyes. “I’m the one that milks her!” He nudged her thigh with his dangling foot. “Besides, plants need water to grow, right?”

Pidge retorted, “This is an alien plant, so does it? Besides, Allura’s the Blue Paladin now.” When Lance’s face fell, she mentally berated herself for mentioning Allura and her Blue Paladin-ness at once. “I’m so—”

“It’s fine,” Lance interrupted. He smiled, but the familiar telling wrinkle appeared on his forehead as he did. “I’m over it now.” He propped his right foot on his left knee, a hand curling around his ankle, a finger pressing against his covered soulmark.

Pidge returned her attention to the notes and tried to ignore the fresh tension.

* * *

Pidge didn’t have a soulmark or the barely empathic bond that came with a requited one. Once, she thought that freed her from the pressure of pursuing a relationship, a distraction that almost everyone she knew was more than happy to indulge in when she couldn’t afford to, but sometimes the reality of what she lacked stared her in the face, despite her family’s reassurance that she wasn’t _missing_ anything.

“How does it feel?” she asked Matt once, shortly after reuniting and reacquainting, relating at least some of what happened in the time they were apart.

“How does what feel?” Matt said. He flipped through Pidge’s old notebook, one that she’d had in her backpack when they left Earth, though she didn’t know what he hoped to find.

It was only a morbid sort of curiosity that bid Pidge to wonder, “What’s it like to lose a soulmate?”

Matt didn’t stiffen like she’d half-expected him to, didn’t even pause halfway through turning a page when Pidge spun around in her chair to look at him. But after a too-long, almost uncomfortable beat of silence, filled only by the pounding of Pidge’s heart, he glanced up at her, the notebook open on his lap. “Why do you ask? I thought you didn’t have one.”

“I…I don’t,” Pidge said. She grabbed her wrist, keeping herself from reaching for her ankle like she did whenever someone brought up soulmarks, a mannerism she was sure she picked up from Lance. “I just wanted to know if losing one was anything like never having one.”

Matt usually spoke freely of his soulmate, every emotion from pride to grief in his voice when he did, though he evaded mentioning her death, or even her name. Pidge suspected she knew but didn’t have the heart to ask him to confirm.

It only served to remind Pidge that Matt lost as much to this war as she did – and more.

“I wouldn’t know,” Matt said with a sad smile, resting a hand on her shoulder. “On one hand, they say it’s better to have loved and lost, but on the other?” He shrugged, poking her with his right thumb. “You can’t miss what you never had, right?”

Pidge bit her lip. “I guess I’m glad I never had that to distract me from finding you.”

“Yeah, you never let it bother you, and I always admired that.” Matt ruffled her hair, and Pidge grinned at the familiar gesture. “But is it bothering you now?”

She tapped a finger against her keyboard, her nail producing a satisfying _click-click-click_ sound. “A little,” she admitted, though she knew it to be an understatement. “Hunk told me the soul bond is a bit like it is with the Lions, but…” She narrowed her eyes at her screen, unseeing, inhaled, and said, “Is having a soulmate the same thing as being in love?”

Matt laughed, leaning against her desk and watching her face intently, though she refused to meet his gaze. “I never really thought so,” he said. “I’ve had crushes on people that weren’t my soulmate.” He grasped his chin, tapping his cheek thoughtfully. “Let’s see, there was Keith, then Allura—”

“I don’t mean a _crush_ , Matt,” Pidge interrupted, irritably shaking her head. She buried her face in her hands. “I mean…Quiznak, I don’t know what I mean.” She tipped forward, forehead colliding lightly with the surface of her desk, and huffed.

She heard Matt sit on the floor, before he tugged at her arm. Pidge gladly joined him, leaning against her desk while he flung an arm around her shoulders. “I’ve met people that aren’t married to their soulmates,” he said.

Pidge pulled her knees up to her face and propped her chin on them. “Yeah?”

Matt nodded. “Sure, I’m pretty sure Commander Iverson’s wife wasn’t his soulmate.”

Pidge snorted, unable to prevent the amused grin on her face. “I don’t think I like that you’re comparing me to that asshole.”

“Don’t be so hard on him, Pidge,” Matt chided her with a nudge to the shoulder. “I’m sure he had his reasons.”

She narrowed her eyes at the floor in front of them, the old, familiar anger returning. “None good enough for me.”

Matt sighed but didn’t contradict her. Instead, he wondered, “So who is he? Or she?”

“He’s…it doesn’t matter.” Pidge shook her head and slumped, not even a little surprised that Matt saw through her so quickly. “He’s not interested.”

“Because he has a different soulmate?”

“That, and I know he likes her.” _Loves_ her, she’d had reason to suspect since Naxzela, after the heat and stress of battle and near-annihilation faded and the gaps in her memory started to fill.

“I wish I could tell you he’ll come around,” Matt said, “but, well, I’ve never heard of requited soulmates that didn’t get together.”

Pidge wrung the hem of her sweater. “It’s not requited though.”

“Ah, that must be tough for him.” Matt rested his hand on her shoulder, silently bidding her to look at him. “I’m sorry, Pidge.”

“Me too.” She rubbed her eyes, angry that it bothered her as much as it did. So what if Lance would never feel the same?

* * *

Pidge soon discovered the vine accepted about as much water as something of the sort on Earth would. She worried she’d watered it too much when she checked on it after a night cycle and found the soil still damp, but between the heat of the UV lamp and the roots, the soil dried quickly.

The vine flourished under the conditions she provided, almost without much effort. “Maybe being the Green Paladin gave me a green thumb after all,” Pidge joked once during dinner while telling the rest of the Castle’s denizens about her side project.

Allura and Coran both looked suitably confused about her use of the idiom. Allura even narrowed her eyes at her hand, curled around the handle of a spork while she ate, and said, “Your thumb doesn’t appear to have changed color.”

Lance smiled and explained, “It’s a figure of speech. If you have a green thumb it means you’re good with plants.” He held his own thumbs up to emphasize, and Pidge had to bite back an amused giggle.

“Oh!” Allura said brightly. “I suppose my mother had a green thumb then; she cultivated juniberries! She had the only domestic crop on all of Altea…” She trailed off wistfully, a hint of a sad smile on her face as Shiro rested a hand on top of hers. She turned her hand, curling her fingers around Shiro’s.

Pidge couldn’t help a glance at Lance, couldn’t help noticing him swallow and stare down at his plate before he grinned again and started talking to Hunk about some training simulation they had roped Keith into. Her heart sank, at odds with the flutter in her stomach, sparked by Lance’s foot brushing against hers underneath the table.

* * *

The stereotype on Earth was that someone without a soulmark couldn’t love someone romantically, and for most of her life Pidge was content to believe that, even if most people also seemed convinced she missed out by lacking a soulmark.

“What does your soulmark look like?” a girl in her class in third grade once asked her.

“I don’t have one,” Pidge admitted easily.

The girl’s eyes widened in shock. “Really? I thought people without soulmarks were only in stories!”

Pidge scowled. “I’m not lying!”

It devolved into an argument from there that almost every other student in the class was sucked into, each one showing off a soulmark, a bright spot of color against the skin on an arm, leg, neck, or even face, all while Pidge was made to feel worse and worse about her lack, like she missed a crucial organ and they mocked her for it.

(Though, of course, the missing soulmark was the least of what she was mocked for in school.)

For years Pidge reserved all her love for her family, barely even entertaining thoughts of anything like romance despite knowing that people pursued relationships with those that weren’t their soulmates all the time. And she was fine with that, especially when her missing father and brother stole all her attention; the search for them might as well have been her soulmate for all the time she spent obsessing over it.

But then she met Lance, and once she forgot her initial irritation with him, somehow, he drew her in. Her heart pounded when he stood too close, and her face warmed at every idle touch. And even though his words sometimes had her eyes rolling in exasperation – even though he sought romance with girls she knew for a fact weren’t his soulmates – she liked him.

Pidge liked the ease with which they conversed, his sense of humor and his willingness to at least _attempt_ to follow along with any technical talk. She admired his work ethic, once she bothered to make note of it, and his loyalty to his family and friends. And at first, it was nothing more than _like_ and _admiration_ and a sense of _gratitude_ that she could call him her friend and teammate, except…

Lance found his soulmate, and Pidge still didn’t have one.

* * *

“We should name it.”

Pidge shifted a curling, newly grown wedge-shaped leaf aside to better examine the base of the vine. “What did you say?” she asked Lance.

“I said, we should name the vine.” His footsteps sounded closer, and then he stood beside her, casting a shadow over the pot.

Pidge glanced at him and frowned. “Why?” she said. “It’s a…plant.”

“Right,” Lance said cheerfully, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “Which means it’s alive, which means it has feelings—”

“What?”

“—which means it wants a name other than _the plant_ or _the vine_ or _the miracle of life_.”

Pidge snorted, covering her mouth so that Lance wouldn’t notice how amused she was. “And what did you have in mind, Lance?”

“Hmm.” Lance touched one of the longer tendrils, and it curled loosely around his finger as if to clutch at him. He smiled and suggested, “Hans.”

“ _Hans_?” Pidge blinked at him. “No, absolutely not. You are _not_ naming my vine _Hans_.”

“ _Our_ vine, Pidge,” Lance pointed out with a pedantic finger raised – though she noticed he didn’t lift the one the vine still held. Before Pidge could contradict him, he added, “I have as much right to name your project as you do!”

Pidge crossed her arms and smirked. “Oh yeah? Then why did you just call it _my_ project?”

Lance’s jaw dropped. “I mean _our_ project and you know it!”

Pidge rolled her eyes. “Do I?”

“Yes!” He waved his arms emphatically, finally dislodging the vine’s grip on him. “As you can see, I have been watering our beloved vine as often as you!”

Pidge picked her designated ‘vine notebook’ off her desk and smacked Lance’s chest with it. “Then how come only _I_ log observations?”

Lance shrugged and said, “I do the naming, you do the science?” When Pidge only stared skeptically at him, he added, “Then why don’t I make a list of names _I_ like so that you can pick one that _you_ like?”

Pidge sighed and turned back to the vine. Perhaps it _would_ be nice to give it a name… She let a tendril curl around her fingers, much like a baby gripping an offered thumb, and said, “Fine.” At Lance’s triumphant _yes_! she quickly added, “But don’t make all the names stupid like _Hans_.”

“As you wish, Pidge,” Lance said, but despite his accompanying eye roll he grinned. Pidge even allowed him to take the notebook – _very_ temporarily, she warned him – for his list.

After a few blissful doboshes of silence, when Lance flipped through her notebook – _beyond_ where he devised his list of names – and Pidge worked on a new program, Lance interrupted to ask, “What do you think of _Voltron Junior_?”

Pidge laughed so hard she fell out of her chair, breathless and crying.

* * *

Lance cleared his throat and waved towards the flourishing vine with all the flair he possessed. “Paladins and princesses and Corans,” he said with a grin, “I present to you the Miracle Vine, the lone survivor of that-one-planet-with-the-name-I-forget, the resilient and beloved _Venus_.”

Pidge threw up jazz hands, like she’d promised, though she still rolled her eyes at the performance Lance insisted on giving.

“You named a vine… _Venus_?” Keith said, crossing his arms and eyeing the plant skeptically.

“The planet or the goddess?” Hunk wondered.

“Isn’t Venus also a brand of women’s razor blades?” Shiro mused.

“Yes, you’re right, Shiro!” Hunk said. “Did you name the plant after razors?”

Pidge smacked an exasperated hand to her face as Allura asked, “Why would you name it after a blade?”

Lance grumbled, “Look, she’s beautiful so we named her after a goddess of beauty, okay?”

“ _She_?” Hunk said.

Coran stepped close enough to the plant – Venus – that Pidge’s protectiveness reared its head. She approached to intervene, but Lance grabbed her arm, his hand warm on her skin even through the fabric of her sweater as he tugged her back.

Pidge relented, tapping her foot impatiently as Coran said, “I can’t see what would mark this plant as _female_ , although _this_ looks to be a—” He leaned over the plant, then beckoned for someone to join him.

Pidge did, eagerly, and looked at what Coran indicated. “Holy _quiznak_ ,” she breathed, stunned and awed all at once. “Is that a bud?”

“A _what_?” Lance asked, nudging her aside so he could take a look. He whistled in admiration when his eyes fell on what looked like a flower bud, a green tear drop-shaped appendage about as long and as thick as Pidge’s thumb, the slightest hint of blue visible beneath the plant’s surface.

“Does this mean we’re going to be grandparents?” Lance wondered, speaking low and directly into Pidge’s ear.

She shivered involuntarily, hoping he wouldn’t notice, and quietly said, “Sort of? At least if it gets pollinated and…” She blinked and tore her gaze from Venus’ bud to stare wide-eyed at Lance. “Do you think it’ll self-pollinate?”

Lance blinked at her. “Uh, I may not have failed,” he said, scratching his chin, “but I didn’t do so well in biology, so can you—”

“Do you think it can pollinate itself?” Pidge asked the room at large, glancing from Lance, to Coran, to Hunk, the two of them the most scientifically minded in the room, other than her.

Coran twirled his mustache. “Perhaps,” he said, “though I suspect you won’t find out until you try it.”

Pidge smiled and threw herself at her desk, scrambling for her notebook. “Great, I just need to design the next experiment.”

Everyone else dispersed when her attention was diverted, Hunk lingering longest to chat with Lance just out of earshot. She only glanced up at them when she thought she heard her name, but when she ascertained that neither looked towards her, she focused on her notebook again.

Lance stood behind her after Hunk left, his presence at her shoulder, trying to read over it, proving distracting. “You really think we can grow more of Venus?” he asked.

Pidge tapped her pen against the notebook. “Maybe,” she said. Venus attracted her gaze, thin, vibrantly green vines curling from the edge of the ceramic pot and down towards the ground, where the tips already brushed the hangar floor. From where she sat she couldn’t spot the flower bud, but she knew it was there.

Pidge smiled, sensing potential.

* * *

Before Venus, Pidge thought the closest she ever felt to Lance was at the space mall, when they went diving for coins in a public fountain with the common goal of obtaining an antique video game console. Considering what they’d been through – together and apart – since, she sometimes felt silly dwelling on it, on a time when she couldn’t put a name to the warmth in her chest and on the reason she so easily smiled in his presence.

Was this how he felt, when he spent any time with Allura, even though he knew she would never want him? Did he feel light and heavy of heart all at once, that smiles came quickly but faltered just as fast?

On her last mission to Olkarion before Naxcela, when she’d been paired with Lance, they’d had their first real conversation about soulmates – deeper than the one at the Garrison, when Lance showed her and Hunk the pink mark on his ankle and mused about what his soulmate must be like, worried that he never felt anything along the bond like he should, when he’d teased Hunk about the incomprehensible symbols on _his_ soulmark…and when he’d quickly changed the subject when Pidge confessed – in a rare spurt of honesty, at least in those days – that she didn’t have one.

“My soulmark is unrequited,” Lance said without prompting en route back to the Castle from Olkarion.

Pidge stiffened, her hands tightening around the Green Lion’s controls, but didn’t say anything. Her heart pounded so loudly she thought Lance would be able to hear it, and beneath her feet Green rumbled, responding to her sudden agitation with worry.

“I think I’ve known that for a while,” Lance continued, pacing the cockpit behind her, footsteps echoing around the small room, “but it was hard to accept until I saw Shiro’s mark.”

Pidge finally dared to ask, “Why are you telling _me_?”

Lance approached her, leaning against the console so he could look her in the eye. “Why not? We’re friends, right? And friends talk to each other about stuff like this.”

Pidge pinched her lips together, unsure if she was flattered by his admission or disappointed by his reason or both. “I’m sorry,” she said.

Lance ignored her and plowed on, “At first, when we met, I thought well, she’s been asleep for ten thousand years! No wonder I never felt any kind of bond, but then…” He shrugged, leaning forwards. “I’m a little heartbroken.”

Pidge swallowed; she was out of her depth here, because even when with Matt he so often comforted her rather than the other way around. And with Lance, she had…well, she couldn’t dance for joy seeing him like this, especially not on the eve of battle. She settled for resting a hand on his forearm, trying to communicate through touch what she couldn’t with words.

Lance smiled gratefully at her. “Thanks for listening, Pidge,” he said.

“I didn’t do anything,” she said, blinking at him in surprise.

“You listened,” he said. “Sometimes that’s good enough.” He stood, and Pidge reluctantly withdrew her hand. “I used to feel bad for you, not having a soulmate.” At her scowl, he raised his hands defensively and emphasized, “ _Used_ to, Pidge. Anyway, at least you don’t have to find out that the love of your life will never love you back.”

Pidge snorted, but before she could fight it, she laughed without any humor, covering her face with one hand. Quiznak, she almost wished she could tell Lance, to explain to him the irony in his statement, if only to see the look on his face.

She sobered before Lance could do more than frown at her, considering… Perhaps if she _did_ tell him, it might cheer him up, to know someone cared about him like he wanted Allura to. She opened her mouth, but when he met her eyes, curiosity in them, she choked on the words.

Pidge cleared her throat and fixed her gaze on the viewscreen and the path ahead.

“What’s so funny?” Lance asked.

Pidge forced herself to grin, even glancing towards him though not quite meeting his eyes. Her heart sank, lower than ever, and she lied, “I just remembered a joke my brother once told me. Science humor, so you probably wouldn’t get it.”

They flew in uncomfortable silence for the rest of the return trip to the Castle.

* * *

Venus’ flower bloomed a few day cycles after Coran first noticed the bud, delicate teal petals unfurling towards the light from the UV lamp. Pidge leaned closer to it, inhaling, but she detected no fragrance. She cautiously touched a petal, and when she found it soft she smiled and opened her notebook to sketch the flower as best she could.

Keith would probably be able to do a better job, she thought, but before she could walk out the hangar door, Lance burst in, grinning and with his eyes wide. “You said Venus has a flower?”

Pidge halted and held her breath as Lance grabbed her arms, pulling her towards him in his eagerness. “Yes,” she said, forcing herself to exhale. She wrenched herself from his grip and pointed towards Venus. “I was just going to ask Keith to sketch—”

“Nope, nuh uh,” Lance denied quickly, snatching the notebook and pen from her hands and opening up to the page she’d been working on earlier. “This is _our_ project, Pidge, and I won’t have anyone else’s hands sullying it.”

Pidge raised an eyebrow at him. “You think you can do better?”

“I _know_ I can!” Lance crowed. He peered at the flower with narrowed eyes, humming while he concentrated, then started drawing.

Pidge watched with her arms crossed, and when Lance turned the notebook around to display his handiwork, she couldn’t help smiling. She pointed at it and said, “Keith can _so_ do a better job, Lance.”

He scowled, a flush in his cheeks as he stared at the floor. “Yeah, okay, fine,” he said. “You can ask Keith.”

Pidge grinned in triumph and snatched the notebook and pen back. “I’ll take those,” she said. “You sit tight; maybe after Keith’s done we can talk about self-pollination.”

Lance snorted but didn’t argue.

* * *

The notebook lay open between them after Keith finished. Pidge pointed out what she suspected each part of the flower’s anatomy to be, in relation to flowers from Earth at least, scrawling notes on the page as she labeled it. Lance nodded along with her, as if he understood – and, well, for all Pidge knew he did.

Eventually their conversation turned away from alien botany to their families as Lance talked again about the herbs and vegetables his mother used to cultivate, about the papaya and guava trees that thrived in a tropical climate.

Pidge rested her head on his shoulder, eyes half-lidded as she half-heard, half-felt his words. The warmth of his body surrounded her, his side pressed against hers and his arm stretched out behind her, a hand planted on the floor next to her a measly two centimeters from her own.

“We didn’t plant much,” she admitted at a lull in Lance’s speech. “My mother kept an herb garden because she liked fresh herbs, but we never had a backyard big enough for vegetables or fruit trees.” She smiled, a little nostalgic, and calmer than she’d felt in a while, even with Matt about as safe as she was.

Lance’s presence was soothing in a way no one else’s could be for her. Hunk’s occasional anxious ramblings stressed her out, while Keith’s silences could suffocate. Shiro’s made her want to straighten her back and _do better_ , while Allura’s could be overbearing in her eagerness. Lance, on the other hand, seemed to always know what she needed from him better than she did; either comfort or a terrible joke when she was upset, or encouragement when she felt no closer to finding her father than she had while still at the Garrison.

Pidge didn’t realize they’d lapsed into a comfortable silence until Lance’s head fell onto hers. He breathed steadily, relaxed or asleep, but when she risked a sideways glance at his face, his eyes were still open.

They flicked up and met hers, and he smiled. Quiznak, when did they get so _close_?

Pidge drifted even closer, her thoughts drawing conclusions faster than she could analyze and dwell on them. And before she could overthink too much, her racing heart and the feelings prepared to burst from her spurred her into action.

Pidge kissed Lance, her eyes fluttering closed almost involuntarily. He gasped, in surprise or something, his hands coming up to grasp her shoulders when she pressed in a little closer, unsure how, exactly, to move her lips, eagerness more than experience guiding her.

Pidge smiled when he kissed her back, and for once it didn’t bother her that they weren’t soulmates. Why should it? Her feelings – _their_ feelings – couldn’t be dismissed so easily.

Lance pulled back before she did, and Pidge opened her eyes as she caught her breath, a grin already prepared on her face. “Lance, I—”

“I’m sorry,” Lance said. Abruptly he disentangled their limbs, scooting a few centimeters away, far enough that a draft swept over Pidge’s skin, chilling her and raising goosebumps on her arms. “I shouldn’t have—”

“Why not?” Pidge said, eyes widening. She pressed a hand to her chest, feeling her heart pound away inside, heavy with dread rather than light with joy.

“I’m sorry, Pidge,” Lance repeated. He frowned, eyes flicking towards her face briefly before drifting away again.

“Why?” she insisted. She almost shifted closer, but Lance’s closed off demeanor held her back.

“I…have a different soulmate,” Lance reminded her, a hand curling around his ankle over his soulmark. “I don’t feel the same way, Pidge.”

Pidge stared at him, thoughts slow to comprehend, but when she understood, she tore her gaze away and stood up. “I never said I felt any way either,” she pointed out, careful to keep her tone clinical, logical, _detached_. She bit her lip and gathered Venus’ notebook from where it fell on the floor. She set it on her desk and turned to leave, ignoring the Green Lion rumbling inside her head – chiding and comfort all at once, and the closest thing she would ever experience to having a requited soulmate. Distantly she heard Lance stand up and follow her, but she didn’t pay him any mind, too busy seeking escape before she could release the tears that already threatened as a vague scratchiness in her throat, until his large, warm hand encircled her wrist.

Taunting her, _mocking_ her, like every other peer that thought it _strange_ and _abnormal_ not to have a soulmark.

Pidge scowled and wrenched her arm from his grip, throwing a glare at him over her shoulder. He recoiled, raising his hands defensively, but then he said, “I’m sorry, Pidge.”

“You already said that.” She sniffed, turning her face away. “I just need to be somewhere else now.”

“Yeah,” Lance said, and he sounded so defeated it would’ve broken her heart if it hadn’t already crumbled into tiny bits moments ago. “I understand.”

It took all Pidge’s willpower not to sprint from the hangar, away from Lance’s and the Green Lion’s concerned gazes.

* * *

Matt came by to see her before he left with Captain Olia and the rest of a small contingent of rebels that visited the Castle to strategize. He crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow at her when she greeted him at her bedroom door. “Shouldn’t you have been at the meeting?”

Pidge bit her lip and admitted, “Yeah.”

“And you weren’t because Venus was taking all your attention?” Matt’s eyes drifted past her, into her messy room as if he expected the vine to be there, but then they snapped back to her face. He frowned and asked, “What’s wrong, Pidge?”

Pidge rubbed her eyes – red from crying tears of frustration and sadness and everything in between – and threw her arms around Matt. “I don’t really want to talk about it,” she said, her voice muffled by his shirt.

Matt hugged her back and sighed. “Fine,” he said, “just tell me who I have to kill.”

Pidge snorted, amused despite herself. “It’s not…anyone else’s fault,” she said. _It’s_ not _,_ she insisted to herself; she only misinterpreted Lance’s affection. _I should stick to reading computers instead._

“What did you do, then?” Matt wondered. He rested his hands on Pidge’s shoulders and nudged her away so he could look her in the eye.

Pidge crossed her arms and shifted her weight. “I kissed…Lance,” she confessed.

Matt stared at her, wide-eyed, but when he comprehended his face twisted into a scowl. He turned back towards her door and said, “Then I’ll go _talk_ to him.”

“What?” Pidge said. She grabbed his wrist and pulled him back. “No, it’s not his fault.”

Matt glanced over his shoulder at her. “No?”

Pidge shook her head. “I just remembered he has a soulmate,” she lied. She looked around her room, her eyes not landing on a single spot, and tried to ignore the ache in her chest. “Even if it’s unrequited, it’s still…important to him.”

_Then why did he kiss you back?_ an insidious voice in the back of her head posed.

Pidge ignored it, like she should’ve ignored the urge that spurred her on in the hangar. To Matt, she added, “Besides, we haven’t found Dad, so I don’t really…I can’t afford this distraction.” _Too late for that._

Matt narrowed his eyes at her, his arms crossed, and she could tell he didn’t entirely believe her. For once, though, he let it slide and said, “All right, if you say so.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “I have to go for now, but Pidge, please just be careful with your heart. Lance isn’t the only one that can break it.”

Pidge curled her hands into fists. “I…okay,” she said, not quite understanding what Matt meant, though she took his words to heart.

* * *

Pidge avoided everyone for the rest of that day cycle and skipped dinner. Naturally, her absence didn’t go unnoticed, but when a soft knock sounded from her door, she instead ignored it, intent on focusing on her prototype of a Rover she was building from scratch.

But the knocker insisted, and Pidge grumbled, “Who is it and what do you want?”

“You weren’t at dinner,” Hunk’s voice called in. “I brought some food, and to check on you. You okay, Pidge?”

Bitterly, Pidge said, “Why don’t you go ask Lance?”

Hunk admitted, “I did, but he’s not talking either.”

Pidge drummed her fingers on her desk, glancing at the door before sighing and saying, “Fine, come in.”

Her bedroom door slid open, and Hunk walked in with a bowl of green goo in one hand and a milkshake in the other. He set both on top of a stack of notebooks, and unlike usual his judgmental gaze didn’t sweep across her untidy room.

“Lance wanted me to give the milkshake to you,” Hunk said.

Pidge stared suspiciously at the straw, as if it would bite her when she tried to take a sip. To Hunk she said through gritted teeth, “He shouldn’t have.”

“Well, obviously he feels bad about something.” Hunk rested a hand on her shoulder. “Did he prune Venus incorrectly?”

Pidge turned to gape at Hunk. “He would _never_ prune Venus,” she said, horrified he would think so. “Neither of us would. She’s not _topiary_.”

Hunk raised his hands defensively. “All right, sorry I asked.”

Pidge grabbed the bowl of goo, despite her lack of appetite, and spooned a bit into her mouth. She was still too upset to taste anything, and the texture turned to ash. She managed to swallow but didn’t immediately take another bite.

Hunk watched her expectantly. “So…?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Pidge said mechanically.

Hunk sighed and sat cross-legged on the floor near her. “Is this because you’re not soulmates?”

Pidge’s grip tightened around her spork. “Hunk,” she said, “you have five tics to get out of my room. At five tics, I’m changing the settings on your bedroom door so that only _my_ voice can open it.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Got that?”

Hunk stood. “I can fix it easily,” he said.

“Maybe,” Pidge admitted, “but it would take you a while.”

“Look, just…I know Lance doesn’t always think before talking about his feelings, but whatever happened between you has him just as upset as you.”

Pidge didn’t want to hear that, didn’t want to know that Lance hurt as badly as she did – perhaps with the added injury of a soulmate gone wrong. It didn’t seem fair, that even the truth could wound them both so much.

She didn’t want to empathize with him, and maybe she never really _could_ until she had an unrequited soulmark too. And unlike with her missing family – a different heartbreak suffered entirely – there was nothing she could do to heal except _wait_ , and she’d never been much good at that.

Pidge didn’t hear Hunk leave, only hoping that he had before she curled up on her bed, clutching a pillow to her chest and struggling to nurse her wounds while condensation slid down the glass of the milkshake abandoned on her desk.

* * *

Pidge refused to neglect Venus in the wake of her misguidedly kissing Lance, even if caring for the vine brought them into contact, often alone, outside of training and fighting and meetings, and when she walked into the hangar for the first time since _then_ – struggling to shake the memory of the last time she was in there the entire way – the sight of Venus’ single teal flower brought her up short.

The color wasn’t as vibrant as the day before, the petals wrinkled with age rather than youth. The tips of Venus’ tendrils turned yellow, leaves faded from a rich green to something more washed out. And the change had been so rapid, so instantaneous, so _shocking_ after all the work and care and _love_ she and Lance bled into Venus that Pidge spent the next two vargas wiping frustrated tears from her face.

Lance found her like that, sitting at her desk and furiously scribbling in her notebook with one hand while another rubbed her eyes. “Pidge?” he spoke up tentatively. “Are you—”

_No,_ she thought, but in response she only pointed to Venus in its position under the UV lamp.

Lance turned towards the plant, eyes widening as they fell on it. He approached it, and Pidge followed, careful to maintain a distance between them despite her inclination to step closer. “Quiznak. What happened?” he asked, glancing between Venus and her.

Pidge pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes. “I don’t know.” She sighed and narrowed her eyes at Venus, as if the vines and wilting flower could tell her. “Maybe it has a short lifespan, just long enough to flower.”

Lance rested his hands on his hips and remarked, “I may not be good at biology, but that sounds stupidly inefficient.”

“I know.” She adjusted her glasses, shaking her head to clear it of thoughts of _Lance_ and biting her lip to distract from the well of her jumbled emotions associated with him. Right this tic, she – _they_ – needed to focus on Venus, to find out what had her sickening when she’d spent such a long time thriving with no sign of weakness.

Pidge inhaled bracingly and pinched the end of a yellowing tendril between two fingers. “It’ll be fine,” she promised Lance, and herself. “We can fix this.”

She hoped, even as the familiar threat of failure reared its ugly head.

* * *

“So what sorts of projects do you enjoy, Pidge?” The rebel sitting at the table in front of her wondered, blinking white rheumy eyes at her. He had four pairs of them, like a spider, though one pair was positioned on the back of his head, and for some reason only one was obviously blind.

Pidge smiled. Despite her dislike of small talk, her desire to evade most social interactions required of her thanks to Allura’s diplomatic strategy, she perked up when she sensed Agogra’s interest. “Well, I’m building a prototype based on the design for Galra drones.” She formed the pyramidal shape with her hands, demonstrating. “Originally I wanted to steal one and rewire it like before, but this time I decided to try making one myself.”

Agogra’s companion, a humanoid alien with snowy white hair and pale blue skin, said, “And I’m sure you’ll succeed. We’ve heard much about the Green Paladin’s ingenuity.”

Pidge flushed, pleased with the compliment though she suspected Matt was bragging about her to his fellow rebels. “Thanks,” she said, and glanced at Agogra, who, if she recalled correctly, was an engineer. “Maybe when I finish, I can show—”

A sudden burst of familiar laughter cut her off, distracting her enough that her next words dissolved before they could leave their tongue. Confused, she turned from Agogra’s six forward-facing blinking eyes and towards the sound.

Lance – because who else could so easily capture her interest? – stood laughing with another rebel, Hunk nowhere in sight. The rebel smiled, looking almost sheepish – but Pidge was unsure thanks to her being an alien – with her furred ears twitching. Fangs poked out from between her lips, and she was taller and broader than Lance.

Pidge bit back the irrational surge of jealousy; so what if Lance wanted to spend time with someone else at a party? She hadn’t wanted his company anyway. And if this was how he coped with an unrequited soulmark…

Pidge excused herself from her curious company, pushing her chair back and standing. She lifted the hem of her dress as she walked – _stupid, too-long hem_ – away from Lance as quickly as she possibly could in a skirt.

She spotted Allura standing with Shiro and Captain Olia and a couple other rebels whose names Pidge didn’t know nearby. Keith stood with Hunk, who held hands with Shay, who served as a member of a small Balmeran delegation. Matt, away on a mission, missed the small party, and Coran was probably off seeing to something logistical like making sure someone didn’t sneak into the teledav chamber _again_.

Pidge stalked out of the ballroom, ignoring the eyes that followed her out, and down the wide staircase in the entryway, suddenly struck by a need for an open space and a view of the stars.

The planet where the Castle parked for this small – relatively – party belonged to Agogra’s race of people; they were a member of the Coalition so offered to host the Castle if the Castle itself served as the venue.

Pidge kicked off her shoes when a chilly evening breeze stirred her hair, loose strands escaped from pins tickling her cheeks. Her toes sunk into soft grass, and even only by the light of the stars – this planet had no moon – as she ventured further from the Castle she could spot tiny white wildflowers in the field.

Absurdly, it reminded Pidge of the poppies in _The Wizard of Oz_. Her lips twisted into a sardonic smile, and she thought, _There’s no place like home, huh?_

She smoothed the skirt of her dress down as she came to a halt, staring up at an unfamiliar sky. _Where are you, Dad? Can Mom still feel you through her soulmark, or—_

“Pidge?”

Pidge inhaled sharply but didn’t turn towards the voice. “Hi, Lance.” She couldn’t hear his footsteps as the soft ground absorbed the sound, couldn’t feel his presence like she would’ve if they were soulmates after all. “Is Allura about to start her speech?”

“No,” Lance said. He approached till he stood beside her; a part of Pidge longed for him to reach out and take her hand, but she was rational enough not to hope. “You okay?”

“Just overwhelmed,” she lied. _And jealous, stupidly jealous._

“That’s…that’s all?” Lance sounded skeptical, but she refused to turn towards him to see the look on his face.

Pidge nodded.

“I’m not sure I believe you,” Lance admitted with a heavy sigh, “but I can tell you don’t want to talk about it.”

She bit her lip. “I don’t.”

“You cold, then?” Lance wondered. “You look a little—”

“I’m fine,” Pidge snapped.

“Quiznak, Pidge, I’m just trying to—”

“I don’t need you to,” she said, struggling to modulate her voice into something softer, less angry. It helped to imagine his eyes wide, even a little hurt, but still squeezed her heart to do so.

“That’s not why I want to help, Pidge,” he said, sounding disapproving. “I mean, even though… _that_ happened, we’re still friends, right? Or at least co-parents…”

Pidge snorted, an unwitting smile on her lips; she hoped he couldn’t see it in the dark. “At the very least,” she quipped.

Lance chuckled, and a heartbeat later he draped something warm over her shoulders – his jacket from Earth, which he’d insisted on wearing to the party even though Coran had been scandalized at what he called a ‘fashion disaster in the making’. “Give it back whenever,” he said, and without waiting for any kind of response he turned and left her to her thoughts.

Pidge tugged the jacket close, a part of her wishing she’d asked _him_ to stay instead.

* * *

For a short, blessed quintant, Pidge thought her and Lance’s relationship was on the mend, that she could put her disastrous attempt at a kiss and Lance’s lack of feelings behind her, especially in the face of Venus’ diminishing strength.

But naturally, something else came along and ruined it.

Allura announced her engagement to Shiro over dinner, a wide smile on her face while he grinned a little more softly. They held hands as she spoke, a flush high in her cheeks, both practically glowing with happiness, a spot of good news in a war that waned but refused to die.

Pidge smiled and congratulated them along with everyone else, but something inside her – something that was one part sympathy and one part jealousy – broke when she caught sight of the strain in Lance’s smile. His fingers on the table twitched, as if he sought something to hold in them, and Pidge guessed he resisted an urge to grab his ankle.

Only Hunk’s elbow in her side, asking her why she stopped eating, distracted her.

Her appetite shriveled up and died. “Do you want to finish my food?” Pidge asked Hunk.

He blinked at her. “Uh, you’re full already?”

Pidge nodded.

Hunk shrugged. “Sure, I’ll take it.”

Pidge pushed her bowl towards him, watching him tuck into it with about as much enthusiasm as she tackled a technical problem. And, well, there was something to be said about approaching _all_ her issues in such a way, everything from her father’s disappearance to Venus’ weakness to…Lance.

But Pidge didn’t know how to escape heartache, anymore than she knew why Venus wilted, the yellow in the vine spreading while the tendrils’ tips browned and crumbled. Watering more wasn’t helping, nor was lessening the time spent under the UV lamp. Even spraying the plant with a mist of water to simulate humidity proved pointless, and both she and Lance were ready to tear their hair out in frustration.

Even the single flower was down to only a few wrinkled petals. What curse would remain in place when they finally fell?

Everyone dispersed after dinner, pursuing separate evening activities. Pidge wandered into the lounge before anyone else did, uncertain she wanted to feed her loneliness by retreating to her bedroom or the Green Lion’s hangar.

She ended up staying there longer than almost everyone else, getting drawn into a weird Altean dystopian novel recommended to her by Allura and downloaded to her tablet. So entranced was she with the old book that she didn’t realize someone stood behind her until Allura asked, “Are you enjoying the book?”

Pidge flinched, dropping the tablet into her lap and sitting up. “Yes, I am,” she said when she recovered, heartbeat calming as Allura sat beside her. “It’s good. Why’d you think I’d like it?”

Allura smiled. “Smart heroine, close family ties, a happy ending. It seems like the sort of thing that appeals to you.”

Pidge smirked. “Spoiler alert.”

“Spoiler…?” Allura raised an eyebrow questioningly.

“Oh,” Pidge said, her smile turning sheepish as she played with a loose thread poking from the hem of her sweater. “It’s what you say when you, uh, _spoil_ plot details.”

“I see,” Allura said. She tapped her chin and hummed thoughtfully. “And telling you the book ends happy counts as a _spoiler_?”

Pidge shrugged and admitted, “Maybe not, but what if I wanted it to destroy me?”

Allura asked, “Are you exaggerating? Because I’m not familiar with any books that can actually _destroy_ the reader, or that such a thing is advisable.”

Pidge laughed, tugging her legs up onto the sofa and wrapping her arms around her legs. “Yeah, I’m exaggerating,” she said. “Sometimes I just want a bit of an escape, you know? And someone else’s problems do that, but I like happy endings.” She frowned. “Makes me hope that my family will have one.”

Allura rested a hand on her shoulder. “Oh, they will, Pidge,” she said. “I have a feeling you’ll be quite happy when it’s all said and done.”

Pidge bit her lip. “But what if I don’t?” She rubbed her tired, itchy eyes. “What if I spend the rest of my life searching for my father? What if he’s dead? What if I never see my mother again? What if—” She cut herself off, inhaling shakily. “Quiznak, what if I never get over this?”

“Get over what?” Allura wondered cautiously.

“Get over…” Pidge shrugged. “You know.” She felt she wore her heart on her sleeve sometimes, that anyone with a brain and the ability to reason could sense it.

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about, Pidge. I _suspect_ ,” Allura added when Pidge levelled a narrow-eyed gaze at her, “but I’d rather not make assumptions.”

“Surely the mice told you.”

Allura chuckled. “There may be four of them, but believe it or not, they can’t be everywhere in the Castle at once.”

Pidge’s lip twitched into a premature smile. “It’s Lance,” she finally said, burying her face in her knees. “What if I never get over him? Should I even feel like this if he’s not my soulmate, if someone else is his?” Her heart pounded at the admission, and she ran her fingers through her hair, agitated. “I don’t even _have_ a soulmate.”

Allura sighed. “Pidge, I’m so sorry you—”

A sudden, irrational surge of anger rose within her at the apology, and she snapped, “Maybe this wouldn’t have happened if his mark to you was requited!”

In the wake of her outburst, uncomfortable silence fell, and shame washed over Pidge. She glanced at Allura, saw the wide-eyed hurt on her face, and quickly said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“I know,” Allura said, patting her hand where she tightly gripped her pants, “but that doesn’t stop you from thinking it.”

“I wish I didn’t,” Pidge admitted.

“I know.” Allura slid closer until their sides pressed together, throwing a comforting arm around Pidge, and though she hadn’t waited for an invitation, Pidge leaned into her, grateful for the contact. “I’m sorry too.”

“Why?” Pidge said, blinking at her in surprise. “He… _annoyed_ you.”

“He did,” Allura agreed with a wry smile, “but soulmarks are strange, and I’ve seen a few unrequited ones in my life. Once or twice, it still worked out between them, such as with my parents.”

Pidge gaped at her. “Your parents…?”

Allura smiled. “Yes,” she said. “My father was my mother’s soulmate, but she wasn’t his. She had the mark”—she pointed to the inside of her right wrist—“but he did not. Sometimes it happened that way, at least on Altea.” She frowned. “We never thought of soulmarks as something… _required_ , that you _must_ fall in love with and marry your soulmate; they were only a guideline, and not even a very common one.”

“Oh,” Pidge said lamely.

“Your feelings are your own,” Allura offered. “Perhaps the mark encourages them, puts the idea of them into your head, but it doesn’t _originate_ or _grow_ them, anymore than it maintains them. _That_ would be up to you.”

“Then why didn’t you…” Pidge swallowed, unable to bring herself to ask the question lest she hear something she wouldn’t like.

“Why didn’t I fall in love with Lance?” Allura shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s a good friend and teammate, of course, and I value him as such, but…I never had those warm, fuzzy feelings for him.”

Pidge snorted at the descriptor, amused despite herself.

“And, just as well, I doubt we’d be compatible for very long.” Allura smiled wryly. “And I think he knows that now.”

Pidge couldn’t bring herself to believe that, though she wanted to. Instead, she wondered, “Then how did you know Shiro was…worth it, besides him being your soulmate?”

Allura’s smile turned soft and distant as she pressed a fingertip to her chest, where Pidge guessed her soulmark must be. “He’s kind and thoughtful, and though he’s not as patient as he seems he _tries_. And we’ve both…suffered, in a way, at the hands of the Galra Empire, so there’s comfort in that.”

Pidge smiled. “I’m glad you found each other then.”

“I am too,” said Allura. She grinned at Pidge. “Now, why don’t you tell me what your favorite part of the book so far is? It’s been so long since I had anyone to talk to about it!”

* * *

When Pidge couldn’t sleep that evening, she walked in her slippers down to the Green Lion’s hangar. Despite the conversation with Allura being emotionally draining – if comforting – her limbs were full of restlessness, and a need to check on Venus spurred her on.

She paused, suddenly uncertain and hesitant, when she spotted Lance standing beside the vine, the UV lamp casting a glow and outlining his face.

This time, the sight of him didn’t make her chest ache like before; something in her shifted after speaking to Allura, and despite her mistake, despite the absence of a soulmark, she still desperately wanted him as a friend.

Which was why she spoke up first, before he could see her, and said, “You couldn’t sleep either?”

Lance glanced at her – and quiznak, why could _she_ never succeed in startling _him_? – and smiled. “Not really.” He pointed at the flower at Venus’ center, where only a couple petals still held to the stalk. “Is it just me, or does this feel like something from _Beauty and the Beast_?”

Pidge snorted, standing next to him. “Well, Venus _is_ the goddess of beauty, right?”

“I was thinking more of the…falling in love part of the curse,” Lance admitted quietly.

Pidge narrowed her eyes at him; she wiped her sweaty palms on her pants and cautiously asked, “Which one are you, then, in this scenario? Beauty or beast?”

Lance shrugged. He pressed a finger into the pot’s soil, still damp from the last time one of them watered Venus. “Maybe neither?” He hummed a half-familiar tune from a movie Pidge barely remembered watching. “Guess we’ll find out soon?” He glanced sideways at her.

Pidge swallowed and slipped her hand into his, squeezing. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“For what?” He frowned at her, a confused wrinkle in his forehead.

“I shouldn’t have…kissed you,” she said. “I just thought—” She cut herself off and shook her head. “I’m not sure what I thought anymore.”

“That’s okay,” Lance said. He squeezed her hand back, something warm – something still _hopeful_ – shifting inside her chest when he didn’t pull away. “I think I get it.”

“Yeah, you probably do.” Pidge shuffled her feet, eyes returning to Venus. “I’m sorry about your soulmate too.”

Lance bumped his shoulder into her, and she could hear the smile in his voice when he said, “I’ll be fine. It’s not my first rejection.”

“But isn’t it your worst?”

“Maybe,” Lance said. “I think I was already mostly over it.” His thumb brushed over her knuckles, and Pidge wondered if he was even aware of it. “I’m just enough of an optimist to think it’ll all work out.” He nudged her again, turning his head slightly to meet her eyes and smile. “For both me and you.”

“And for Venus.”

“And for Venus.”

Even the Green Lion rumbled her approval at that, and Pidge grinned. She leaned her head against Lance’s shoulder in an eerie echo of when it all went wrong.

“Are we still friends though?” Lance asked, worry apparent in his voice.

Pidge nodded. “Yeah,” she said, squeezing his hand again. “Somehow, you wormed your slimy way into my heart.”

“ _Slimy?_ ” He brushed his fingers through his hair, as if expecting it to be greasy.

Pidge chuckled. “Yeah, like a pushy, insistent worm.” Then, struck by an idea, she dropped Lance’s hand and gripped the edge of Venus’ pot, fingernails scraping the soil’s surface. “I think I know what we need.”

“What?” Lance said, staring at her with wide, eager eyes.

“I think Venus’ roots aren’t getting enough air,” Pidge guessed. “We need something that’ll tunnel through the soil…like a _worm_.”

Lance rolled his eyes. “You think so, do you?”

Pidge nodded and grinned. “She’s going to be okay.”

Maybe this was the part when it would all start going _right_.

* * *

The soil in Venus’ pot was packed too densely to stir it up, so instead, Lance suggested transplanting to a larger, more porous pot so the vine would still have room to grow.

Pidge and Lance, with some help from Coran, spent much of the following early day cycle doing that, getting dirt under their fingernails, spreading a bit of manure courtesy of Kaltenecker, and adding a simple aeration system in the form of a tank of compressed air, a thick rubber hose, a valve, and a timer.

“Gross,” Lance complained when they finished, examining the dirt caked on his hands.

Pidge wiped her hands on a damp cloth, which she handed to him. “I guess we could’ve used the gloves from our armor, huh?”

“ _Now_ you realize that?” Lance irritably swiped the cloth over his knuckles before leaving the hangar, grumbling something about taking a long shower.

Pidge smiled watching him go, then, at least temporarily satisfied with her state of cleanliness, returned her attention to the notebook and took down the changes they made. She even attempted a drawing of the aeration system paired with Venus’ new pot and the UV lamp, though when she finished it looked more like a halfhearted sketch of a cylinder next to a wide cone with a few spindly tendrils spilling out.

“Good enough,” she muttered. She tossed the notebook onto her desk, flinching when it displaced a few other scattered objects, but left the hangar, intent on a shower of her own.

Despite her lack of sleep during the Castle’s night cycle, Pidge felt invigorated, everything between mending her friendship with Lance to finding _something_ to revive Venus energizing her. It felt like bonding with the Green Lion all over again, an astronomical event compressed into a moment, filling her heart and head to bursting with promise. It felt like…

Well, it felt like what Pidge imagined having a requited soulmate would be.

Pidge rode that high for the rest of the day cycle, sifting through data and seeking her father with a renewed sense of purpose.

* * *

This time Matt found him first.

Pidge sat cross-legged on Lance’s bed, watching him and Hunk play _Killbot_ while she seethed about the dirty trick Lance pulled during her turn. A ping sounded from the wrist computer she always wore, and she lifted her hand to see an incoming transmission from Matt.

Pidge accepted the message, smiling when Matt’s holographic face hovered over her hand. “Hi, Matt,” she said. “You’re lucky I’m not the one playing—” A familiar yet unfamiliar figure standing just behind Matt startled her silent, eyes widening and heart pounding.

Hunk asked, “You all right, Pidge?” But she could hardly hear him through the blood rushing in her ears.

“Where are you now?” Pidge demanded. She sprung up, planting her feet on the floor and sprinting out of Lance’s room and towards her own. “I can meet you—No, let me talk to him, Matt!”

“We’re on our way, actually,” Matt admitted, scratching his ear and smiling apologetically. “Hope Princess Allura won’t mind hosting us, or loaning a healing pod.”

“No, of course not!” Pidge said, grinning. “Oh, quiznak, Matt! You couldn’t wait for me?”

“Nope.” Matt returned her grin, glancing over his shoulder and beckoning to _him_. “Dad, you wanted to talk to Katie?”

The welling flood of emotion – of relief and joy and worry – burst through the dam when her father said, “Katie! You have…a lot of explaining to do.”

Pidge snorted, wiping tears away with one hand while the other shook, barely holding the image steady. “Yeah,” she said, nodding, “but it’s a really long story.”

“That’s okay!” Sam Holt smiled, though with a hint of concern of his own. “We’ll trade, yours for mine.”

Matt ended the call then, and Pidge opened her bedroom door. She tore through the clutter until her hand touched the journal she hadn’t opened since leaving Earth, when everything inside became irrelevant and _basic_. She flipped through it, laughing at how futile and undetailed her search sometimes seemed.

Quiznak, her father might’ve had high hopes for her on Earth, but _this_?

Lance found her like that almost a varga later, when he came by to check on her. “You okay, Pidge?” he asked after her bedroom door slid open to admit him.

Pidge nodded and hugged the journal to her chest. “Better than okay,” she said.

Lance blinked at her, frowning as he took in her face – likely he noticed the redness ringing her eyes, though all that remained of the tears were the tracks. “Are you…sure?”

“Yes.” Pidge sniffed and grinned, then stood up and threw herself at him, wrapping her arms firmly around him and burying her face in his chest. Everything _good_ threatened to overwhelm her, up to and including the feelings for Lance that refused to fade, and even though she wasn’t _upset_ and sought no comfort, she wanted him to hold her.

Perhaps it was selfish of her, to take advantage of Lance’s willingness to give affection, but he didn’t mind. He held her tightly, and his heart beat steadily against her cheek.

“Then what happened?” Lance wondered, his voice rumbling pleasantly through his chest.

“My dad,” Pidge said. “Matt found him.”

“Wow,” Lance said. “I’m…that’s amazing, Pidge!”

“I know.” She smiled, clutching the back of his shirt. “I know.”

* * *

Sam Holt emerged from a healing pod already looking healthier than Pidge suspected he had in way too long, stumbling into the waiting arms of both of his children.

“God, looking at this,” he said with a trace of humor as he rested a hand on Matt’s face, then Pidge’s, “you’d think like _you_ were the parents, and I the kid that needs bailing out of trouble.”

Pidge snorted and hugged her father again, half-supporting his weight. He was worryingly thin, if not emaciated, but Coran had already reassured her and Matt that, with proper nourishment and exercise, he could revert to a healthier weight.

After a meal, small enough for a weak stomach, and getting settled into a spare bedroom, Pidge asked Matt, “Where did you find him?”

Matt sighed, crossing his arms. “Galra prison colony,” he said. “One of the last ones we liberated. Abandoned, and better hidden than most because there’s very little record remaining of it.”

Pidge stared at him. “ _Abandoned?_ ”

Matt nodded. “We’ve seen it before,” he said. “Colonies that are all but drained of resources, and even the labor force is left when the Galra withdraw.” He scowled and added, “Te-osh’s mother died on one like that.”

Pidge blinked. “Te-osh?” she said. “Who…?”

Matt laughed and awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck. “Oh, I guess I…never told you my soulmate’s name, did I? Even though you met her, which is funny, right?”

Pidge narrowed her eyes, wary of the sudden change in his temperament, and though he confirmed a long-held suspicion, she could only be concerned rather than gleeful at a mystery solved. “Then why are you telling it to me now?”

Matt shrugged, holding his hands out. “Don’t really know,” he said. “It doesn’t hurt so much to talk about her, you know?” Then his eyes drifted to land at some point beyond her, and he smiled. “Besides, I still have plenty to look forward to, don’t I?”

Pidge followed his gaze, half-expecting to see their father up and about, but her eyes widened when they fell on Keith instead. She glanced at Matt. “What…happened?”

Matt laughed and held his right hand out to her. “Remember this thing?” He traced the outline of a long, wedge-shaped mark on the inside of his thumb, the reddish purple color of a bruise. “Turns out it’s not a birthmark.”

Pidge’s jaw dropped. Once, she would’ve thought it unfair that her brother had two soulmates while she had none, but now she laughed, smacking Matt’s shoulder. “I’m glad you’re happy,” she told him, “but…” She smiled, a little sadly. “I wish Mom was here.”

“She’ll know Dad’s safe now, at least,” Matt pointed out cheerfully. He briefly wrapped her into a hug before drifting away and approaching Keith, who actually _smiled_ when Matt spoke to him.

Pidge wandered off, waving to them as she did, aimlessly meandering along the Castle’s hallways in search of…well, it was inaccurate to say she sought a new purpose now that both of her missing family members were within easy reach, not when she held the title of Green Paladin of Voltron.

Her gaze caught on one of Allura’s mice – Chulatt, she guessed – scurrying towards the kitchen doorway, and she followed, resting a hand on her belly at the sudden hungry rumble. But she paused outside the closed door, voices drifting out towards her.

“…someone who _isn’t_ your soulmate?” Lance was inquiring.

Pidge held her breath, waiting for a reply, only letting it out after Hunk said, “Yeah. Feelings are feelings, right? A soulmark wouldn’t really dictate that.”

“Easy for you to say,” Lance grumbled. “Your soulmark is requited, _and_ you’re in love with your soulmate.”

Pidge leaned against the wall to listen, glaring at Chulatt. The mouse sat at her feet, staring up at her with a reproachful expression that seemed _awfully_ hypocritical of it. “ _You_ brought me here,” she muttered, pointing at it.

Chulatt scratched behind an ear, unbothered by the accusation.

“Okay, fine,” Hunk said, “then take Pidge as an example.”

Pidge stiffened, exchanging a glance with Chulatt; perhaps it was time to—

“She doesn’t have a soulmate,” Lance said.

“That’s my point!” Hunk said, voice full of exasperation. Pidge imagined him whisking the contents of a bowl with more agitation as he spoke. “She doesn’t have a soulmate, but she still…you know—”

Pidge stepped in front of the door, and it slid open. She stormed into the kitchen and up to Hunk, who was, in fact, whisking something. “Who the quiznak gave you permission to talk about me?” she demanded.

Hunk dropped the whisk with a splash and held his hands up defensively. “I didn’t know you were _eavesdropping_!”

“You were _backbiting_!”

“We’re gossips!” Hunk said, gesturing between himself and Lance. “I can’t help it, and Lance was telling me about—”

“Hunk,” Lance said warningly.

“Oh my God!” Hunk said. He furiously waved the whisk at Lance, scattering drops of pale green batter everywhere. “You gain nothing by refusing to talk!”

Pidge swiped at her cheek, wiping away a bit of whatever batter Hunk was mixing. “Okay, fine,” she said, annoyed. “I’m going to check on Venus.” She stalked away from them, her levity from before evaporating as she considered the implications of what little of Lance’s and Hunk’s conversation she overheard.

Lance was in love with someone that wasn’t his soulmate now? Good for him!

The Green Lion greeted Pidge with a mental purr as she walked into the hangar, but Pidge barely sensed it, too busy wondering why it couldn’t be _her_.

Venus greeted her, tendrils quivering as if stirred by a nonexistent breeze. It looked much healthier, a green more vibrant, with fresh growth curling from the base out of the soil. Only the flower failed with no chance of recovery, a single wrinkled teal petal hanging onto the stem by a fiber.

Pidge had yet to find any new flower buds; perhaps Venus’ species didn’t often bloom.

She sighed and sat with her back against the pot. The floor beneath the UV lamp felt warm, though the lamp itself was turned off at the moment, and the vine enveloped her, offering its own form of comfort and soothing her. She smiled, opening Venus’ notebook in her lap and recounting everything from the beginning.

Her fingertip traced Lance’s signature – he’d grumbled about that, but relented when she insisted it was basic scientific practice – at the bottom of the page with the list of ‘baby’ names. His handwriting was neater than hers, as if he took the time to make it look good rather than simply scribbling everything on his mind before he could forget it, like she did.

Pidge wondered if her father would be proud of this journal, of _her_. “When Dad wakes up,” she told Venus, “I’ll introduce him to you.”

“You’re talking to her now?”

Pidge didn’t jump for once at the sound of Lance’s voice, but her eyes flicked up to see him approaching. She said nothing, not even when he sat beside her, shoulder pressed against hers.

“I’m happy you got your dad back though,” he said with a smile.

Pidge tried a smile of her own. “Me too.”

“Then why don’t you look happy?” When Pidge quirked a confused eyebrow at him, he touched a fingertip to her forehead. “You still worried about him?”

“Only as much as I would be about any of you when sleeping off a healing session,” she admitted, swatting his hand away. She turned a page in the notebook, staring at the words without really seeing them.

“Then…?”

Pidge snapped the notebook shut and clutched it to her chest. “My brother has a second soulmate,” she said. It wasn’t really what bothered her, but…

“Oh, I didn’t know that was possible,” Lance remarked. “Uh, congrats to him?”

Pidge snorted. “You’re not going to believe who it is.”

“Is it…Keith?”

Pidge narrowed her eyes at him, surprised. “How did you know?”

Lance knocked his head against Venus’ pot, glancing sideways at her, and said, “I saw them sitting together when your dad was still in the healing pod and you weren’t with Matt.” He smiled. “It’s sweet, I guess, though I can’t tell what Matt sees in him.”

Pidge rolled her eyes. “Oh, give it up, Lance,” she said. “You and Keith are friends and you know it.”

“Unfortunately.” When Pidge frowned reproachfully at him, Lance chuckled and elbowed her side. “Really, Pidge, you need to lighten up sometimes. I mean, you’re reunited with your dad, your green child is thriving again—”

“ _Our_ green child,” Pidge said. “Remember? You insisted on joint custody.” She held up the notebook and flipped it to the very first page, where Lance handwrote his promise to devote himself to Venus as much as she did.

Lance laughed and flung an arm around her shoulders. “So I did.”

Pidge leaned into him, and they lapsed into an easy silence, at least until Lance said, “I have to tell you something. That’s…mostly why I came here right now.”

She glanced at him and raised an eyebrow. “Okay?” she prompted when he still didn’t say anything.

Lance’s Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat as he swallowed, suddenly looking like a nervous child about to confess to a crime. Pidge’s heartbeat spiked, his anxiety feeding hers, but she gave him her attention, waiting, waiting, waiting…

“I don’t get this,” he said.

Pidge blinked. “Get what?”

“Get…” He waved a hand, turned his body so he could face her properly, though it pulled him away from her so they no longer touched. “I don’t get _soulmates_ , at least not anymore.”

“Does this have anything to do with what I heard you and Hunk talking about?”

Lance nodded. “Yeah, it does.”

Pidge toyed with the hem of her sweater. “I don’t think I can listen to this,” she said quietly. She bit her lip and, at the sight of his questioning glance, explained, “We may be friends, but I can’t hear you tell me you’re in love with someone else.”

“In love with—what?” Lance stared at her. “Wait, Pidge, hold on, that’s not—”

“Then _what_?” Pidge demanded. She turned away from him. “Just spit it out.”

“Okay, _fine_ ,” Lance grumbled. “I was going to tell you this sob story about how my parents are soulmates but still got divorced when I was ten, so—”

“Wait, _what_?” Pidge spun her head around to gape at him. “ _Really_?”

“Well, it’s not really a sob story.” Lance rubbed the back of his neck. “I just don’t really like to talk about it.”

“What are you trying to say then?” she asked, confused. She wiped her hands on her pants.

“Well, it’s like…” Lance grimaced. “It’s hard to explain, but I think that I still had high hopes that the whole soulmate thing could work out, even though I knew my mark was unrequited…” His hand didn’t go to his ankle, like usual, fingers instead running through his hair. “It obviously works out for some people anyway, right?”

Pidge shrugged. “My parents are soulmates,” she said. She wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her chin on her knees. “It’s why my mother and I were so confident my dad and brother were still alive after their disappearance. It’s why I thought the Garrison hid something.”

“That’s…kind of amazing, actually,” Lance said, sounding impressed.

Pidge nodded and confessed, “It’s why I can’t really say that soulmates are stupid or pointless, even if not having one made me something of a target for bullies when I was a kid.”

“Pidge…”

She smiled wryly at Lance. “I would’ve been bullied anyway,” she told him. “I’m a _nerd_ , remember?”

Lance grinned sheepishly, scratching his cheek. “Yeah, you kind of are.”

“And from you, I know that’s a compliment.” Pidge’s face flushed when she heard the fondness in her own voice; she idly flicked the aglets on her shoelaces, seeking a distraction from embarrassment.

“But anyway,” Lance said, clearing his throat when the sudden silence turned suffocating, “I guess I know now that I don’t need my soulmate to be anything other than that.”

“I’m not sure I catch your meaning,” she said.

“I _mean_ that I don’t need to be with her.”

Pidge scowled and stared at the floor, shifting her feet. “I thought you already knew that.”

“I did,” Lance told her. He scooted a little closer, close enough she could reach out and touch him if she tried. “But now there’s a part two.”

“And what’s that?”

“That I can be with someone else if I – if _we_ – want to.”

“Then do it,” Pidge said. “If they feel the same…” The familiar ache filled her chest, but she forced herself to relax, instead sitting cross-legged with her hands in her lap. She couldn’t quite bring herself to smile encouragingly at Lance though. “What’s stopping you?”

“Your stupidity,” he deadpanned.

Pidge blinked. “Who the quiznak are you calling _stupid_?”

Lance rolled his eyes. “Pidge, you’re as dumb as me sometimes.” He leaned towards her, bridging the gap between them until his warm breath swept over her face.

“Maybe I just need you to spell it out for me,” Pidge said. She kept her voice low, something about the atmosphere demanding it, and managed to keep his eyes on his despite the nearness of his mouth. She drifted into him, drawn in by gravity, by electromagnetism, by hope and dread and everything in between. Her hand rested on the floor to keep her balance.

Her heart pounded wildly again, and though she _knew_ what conclusions he wanted her to draw, she couldn’t bring herself to voice them, to possibly repeat the disaster that happened last time she acted on an assumption that proved incorrect.

Lance’s warm hand covered hers. His eyes slipped shut, and Pidge thought he waited for _her_ to make the first move, to push whatever their relationship was – whatever it could _be_ – along.

Pidge licked her lips, but before she could change her mind, steer herself away from doing something she desperately wanted to, she clutched the collar of Lance’s shirt and tilted her head backwards.

She kissed him, though at first it was nothing more than a soft press of lips. Lance’s breath was warm on her cheeks, but his hand felt even warmer on her skin when he reached up to cup her face. She withdrew slightly, enough to meet his eyes; when she did, something – something perfect and  _good_ , something lost in translation _last_ time– clicked into place.

Pidge kissed Lance again, but longer and  _more_ , burying her hands in his soft hair when his teeth scraped her bottom lip. In that moment, it no longer mattered that they weren’t soulmates, that mere months ago Lance pined after the person that  _should’ve_ worn his soulmark.

They parted breathlessly, and Lance wrapped her in his arms, pulling her halfway into his lap. “I love you, Pidge,” he muttered into her ear. “I’m sorry it took me so long to figure that out.”

Pidge shivered against him, burying her face in his shoulder. “Some of us are slower than others, Lance,” she quipped, a wide grin on her face.

Lance pushed her back a little by the shoulders, narrowing his eyes at her. “If you’re just going to insult me—”

Pidge kissed his chin, stunning him silent. “I love you too, even though you made me wait.”

Lance smiled, and they embraced again.

* * *

The final teal petal fell from Venus’ single flower, leaving a bare stalk to wilt. But a few small, green buds peeked out from the soil, awaiting a heat source to encourage them to bloom.

**Author's Note:**

> Got any questions, comments, or quandaries?? You know what to do ;)
> 
> (or find me on [that hellsite](https://sp4c3-0ddity.tumblr.com/))
> 
> Edit: oh, and that smooch at the end was inspired by [these](http://nicollini.tumblr.com/post/169433425809/inch-by-inch) [two](http://nicollini.tumblr.com/post/169516855659/so-close-continuation-of-inch-by-inch-because) arts by [Nico](http://nicollini.tumblr.com/). (All her art, fanart or original, is super cute, btw.)


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